Until
Until is one of those riveting words of life. It speaks of a cessation of one dynamic and the starting of another. "He was in the desert until..." (Luke 1:80) Ps 105:19 Until the time that his word came: the word of the LORD tried him.
Our text this morning is one of the most significant "until" passages in all the scriptures. It is about the story of a Godly man who was in the midst of very severe spiritual slump... until...
We are going to look at Psalm 73 this morning and from it we are going to get an interesting insight into why some people backslide. We are going to talk about the Essau in you, and plants you don’t want growing in your garden. We will end on a positive note about when God says, "come up here."
Let’s begin with a discussion on why people backslide. We can find two of the main reasons in the text of Psalm 73:
Ps 73:2 But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped.
Ps 73:3 For I was envious at the foolish, [when] I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
Ps 73:4 For [there are] no bands in their death: but their strength [is] firm.
Ps 73:5 They [are] not in trouble [as other] men; neither are they plagued like [other] men.
Ps 73:6 Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them [as] a garment.
Ps 73:7 Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish. Ps 73:3 For I was envious at the foolish, [when] I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
The writer of Psalm 73 lays out for us the reason he almost backslid, and what brought him up out of that mess.
As I read the text I come up with two reasons people backslide.
1. The Essau in them is crying out to be fed.
2. Personal suffering pushes them away from God.
The first reason people backslide is probably the reason most of us think of when we think of backsliding: they fall prey to their physical lusts. Essau, you remember sold his inheritance for a bowl of stew. In other words, he traded his future to satisfy physical desires. How many times have we seen a "Christian," date or marry a non-Christian to deal with loneliness, abandoning Christian principles for fleshly fulfillment. When we think of backsliding we think of drunkenness, fornication, drug use - all the sins of the flesh. I almost titled the message, "That plant does not belong in my garden," to try to get you thinking of what the bible teaches us about sin. The psalmist is looking at how worldly people are having all their physical appetites fulfilled and it is stirring his fleshly desires. I use the imagery of a garden to remind you about seeds, and roots, and weeds and things that we don’t want to allow to grow, or they will produce a terrible harvest. Asaph saw something very bad growing inside himself, and it was being watered by what the world calls, "bling."
The psalmist says he got envious of what sinners had, and he noticed how they seemed to be living high on the hog. He goes so far as to suggest that it has been a waste of time to serve God because there seems to be so little profit in the godly lifestyle.
Ps 73:13 I’ve been stupid to play by the rules; what has it gotten me? (Message version)
C. S. Lewis said, "Either the Bible will keep you away from sin, or sin will keep you away from the Bible." Asaph is telling us the effect that envy was having on him, it was trying to pull him away from God.
I remember the advertisements we use to have for Snickers candy bar, "to satisfy the hunger inside you." There are hungers inside us, that we have to keep in check. From this passage we learn that envy is a plant that makes us hungry to feed our sensual desires. The book of James tells us a lot about the nature of temptation and sin:
James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.
In other words you can only be tempted about something that was planted, watered, and cultivated in the dirty places of your heart. If you deal with the roots you won’t have to deal with the fruits. The psalmist recognizes the root of envy was growing in his heart and he almost backlsid over it. (V.2) If you learn to think of your heart as a garden, then you learn to realize it needs continual watch and care, it seems to be a fact of nature weeds grow when no other crop can.
Jas 1:15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.
Whenever I think about sin, I think about Essau and the frightful warning about his life in the NT. What is also interesting the warning is given in the context of being careful what you let grow in your garden:
Heb 12:15 See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many be defiled;
Heb 12:16 that there be no immoral or godless person like Esau, who sold his own birthright for a single meal.
Heb 12:17 For you know that even afterwards, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears.
Marriages have been destroyed, careers have been ruined, people have been murdered, all because people let their sinful passions grow to the point they found expression. The lesson of Essau is not that he is some strange unique person, but we are all just like him, and will fall like he did if we don’t learn to suppress the growth of bad roots in the garden of our heart. Essau was a man who could not say not to his fleshly appetites, so was Samson, and the same sin came calling for King David. This is not a warning to take lightly, what Asaph saw through his eye gate was stirring up desires in his flesh, and they almost got the better of him. This is the Apostle Paul’s very warning in the book of Corinthians:
1Co 10:12 Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.
Asaph who wrote this psalm, also wrote another 11 of them. He was a godly man, and he almost suffered an ungodly fall all because he let the seed of envy take root in the garden of his heart.
The second reason people backslide is because suffering pushes them away from God.
With 30 years of ministry behind me now, I can honestly say that I have seen as many people backslide over suffering as I have seen backslide over lusts. Let me explain.
In the passage before us the Psalmist is complaining that serving God has brought him nothing but trouble, while those serving their own belly seem to be doing quite all right. That incongruity, that evil men seem blessed and good men seem cursed is a very tough pill to swallow.
It is one thing to understand theologically that there is coming a day when God will square up all His accounts and the last will be first and the first will be last. We can embrace that and accept it, but when we are dealing with it personally instead of theologically is when a lot of people backslide. When you lose your house, and the guy at work who lies and steals doesn’t, it can be difficult thing to wrap your mind around and to work through. Stay with me to the next point and I will help you if you are suffering that way.
When you keep having miscarriages, and your unmarried cohabiting coworkers have one baby right after another, it then becomes personally difficult to deal with. When you get laid off and the brewery is hiring more workers it is tough to handle. If you get cancer, and an acquaintance who has been smoking 2 packs a day for 20 years doesn’t...
In many places in the world Christians are horribly persecuted and told if they convert to Islam life will be better. In North Korea living your Christian faith can put you in some of the worst death camps/prisons in the world. What about all those Jews, who boldly stood for their faith in Hitler’s Germany, where was God for them? Many people in those types of situation have turned their back on God.
The psalmist admitted he didn’t understand it, and he almost backslid over it.
There is a related but secondary spiritual infection that I have seen really mess people up. That is, people backslide when they see others suffering. If God is a god of love, then why are children born with such deformities? So and so was a Christian, why was she raped?
Until....
Ps 73:17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; [then] understood I their end.
Basically he is saying, when I got with God then everything started to make sense.
In Rev. 4:11 the Apostle John is called to heaven, by the command, "Come up here." From the vantage point of heaven he sees the whole panorama of human history. That is the only true lens through which life can be viewed from.
You see when you get with God (come into the sanctuary) then you get to see a different perspective, a truer perspective, a broader perspective.
I am grateful that in my short life I have witnessed the fulfillment of prayers that have been prayed by millions of people, and some for thousands of years. Prayers that have been prayed by people who have suffered much. I have in my library books written in the early 1900’s and before, where Christians writers said Israel will become a nation again. In 1948 that dream and promise of God came true. But for thousands of years, people waited. The blessing of having lived a little is that not only do you see the wicked sometimes prospering, but you also get to see the end of them.
Can you imagine how David struggled, waiting to be king while the demonized Saul led that nation. It probably made no sense to him that God took so long to take Saul out, as evil as he was, till the day came David realized he had the same evil inside himself. In retrospect he was probably very grateful that God doesn’t quickly dispose of sinners, because he was one of the worst. Don’t rush for God to judge others, because among other reasons is you don’t want Him to rush to judge you! You see, that is the kind of thing you learn in the sanctuary, when God speaks to your understanding and says, "come up here."
I rejoiced with many Christians and West Berliner’s when the iron curtain fell, and Christianity had free course again in Eastern Germany. I have friends in the CMA church who have family members that were martyred in Vietnam, and Vietnam is slowly opening up to the gospel. I can’t explain why, but I have a special burden for the people of North Korea. I know that there are many Christians in South Korea who have family members that are in that repressive regime. It is a communist closed country, one of the most backward and evil nations in the world. But I believe the tide for them will turn, and revival will come to North Korea.
You see, we can get very negative about life when we only see it from the perspective of now, or the perspective of our own personal suffering. That is when we get overwhelmed with injustice.
It is a good thing to have a broader sense of history, than your limited life span. The psalmist put it this way; First he speaks of what will happen those who are evil and yet prospering:
Ps 73:16 When I thought to know this, it [was] too painful for me;
Ps 73:17 Until I went into the sanctuary of God; [then] understood I their end.
Ps 73:18 Surely thou didst set them in slippery places: thou castedst them down into destruction.
Secondly, he consoled himself, and realized that he can’t change everything right now, but he could find comfort in God:
Ps 73:26 My flesh and my heart faileth: [but] God [is] the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.
Ps 73:27 For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee.
Ps 73:28 But [it is] good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.
An interesting passage is found in the book of Genesis and is complimented by one in the Gospel of John, both offer great insight and comfort.
Ge 28:15 And, behold, I [am] with thee, and will keep thee in all [places] whither thou goest, and will bring thee again into this land; for I will not leave thee, until I have done [that] which I have spoken to thee of.
John 16:33 These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.
In Genesis, God does not promise Jacob the future will be easy but that His presence would be with him whatever may come. In John Jesus says, I have made provision for you to have peace even though there is much tribulation in this world. God may not change everything we want changed, but He has promised peace would always be available.
Close: What is growing in the garden of your heart? Are you struggling that life doesn’t seem fair? Has it gotten so bad that it has made you doubt in God? As we close this service let’s spend some time in the sanctuary of His presence.
